Canada prepares for its 1st World Cup in 36 years
The first game of the World Cup of Hockey is set to take place at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto on Saturday (June 18, 9-10 pm ET on CBC, TVA Sports).
The opening-round matches will be followed by round-of-16 action and quarter-final games from the weekend of September 19-21.
Here’s a quick look at the match-ups, including those with Canadian men, as well as Canada women and the rest of the roster.
Canada men
The men’s roster has changed a few times during this process, but the list is now final and it includes six under-20 players: Connor McDavid, Mark Scheifele, Jonathan Drouin, John Gibson, Sam Reinhart and Alex Galchenyuk. All play for the Toronto Maple Leafs, as well as forward Nikita Scherbak, who is still a bit of a mystery.
Canada women
This year, the national team is playing without its three goaltenders: Christine Lefebvre (who is out for Canada with a torn ACL and MCL), Hayley Wickenheiser (on an emergency assignment in the WJC with an unspecified injury) and Hilary Knight (who is nursing an unspecified injury).
Canada women’s roster and team news:
Keeley Palmer was the first to be called up, and the 24-year-old made her debut with 11:00 to play in overtime in Boston last night (Friday, June 16). She had two hits in 19:32, including a blocked shot and a goal-scoring pass to get Canada over the goal line, helping Canada to a 4-3 win over Team USA, in front of a crowd of 6,664.
Avery Seastrunk (16), Morgan Klimchuk (16), Melissa Tancherault (25), Olivia Laing (23) and Emma Rottier (24) were the youngest on the Canadian roster and, as a result, took significant playing time during this tournament.
Here are the rosters for the quarter-final games:
Round of 16
Canada – (vs. Switzerland)
Munoz, McDavid, Galchenyuk, Reinhart